The Invisible Becomes Visible

This past Sunday, December 12th, was an incredible day for the Southwest Church. In the cold and snow we celebrated the ceremonial ground breaking of our future Worship and Community Center. Since Sunday’s ground breaking ceremony, it has been encouraging to see the site surveying and preliminary construction work begin on the church property.

Sunday’s breakthrough was a long awaited moment, as we have been praying, planning, and saving for this faith project for years. I couldn’t help but recognize the fitting timing of the groundbreaking taking place during the Christmas Season. At Christmas, we celebrate the miracle of God’s Son coming to this earth and revealing a God that we cannot see. The meaning of this spiritual reality is described in the Bible as follows: “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15 NLT).

Our ceremonial ground breaking was in a real way a visible statement of a dream that we have held in our hearts for years. The dream to build a church building that not only will be a worship center during the weekend, but also a resource center throughout the week to the community (and surrounding communities) to meet real needs in people’s lives. As a church in some ways, we have been invisible to our community in the past since we don’t have a visible church building. In the future we are determined to have a more visible presence in the community, so that we can demonstrate God’s love in tangible ways throughout the week.

The Bible states that it is God’s plan for Christ to be revealed to every generation through the Church. Listen to this description of the church, “Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body” (Colossians 1:18 NLT). Please pray and dream with me as we seek to live out what it means to be Christ’s body in this world and to be the visible presence of Christ to a world that desperately needs to know his love, grace, and truth.

Let’s always remember that the church is not a structure, but it is a community of people who are following Christ. And let’s not wait until the church building is completed, to actively live out what it means to be the body of Christ in our world. Realizing the challenge for the church is to embody the teachings and love of Christ to our family members, friends, and neighbors who don’t yet have a personal relationship with God, so that we can be the visible representatives of an invisible God!